Hitler’s Strange Afterlife in India

Hated and mocked in much of the world, the Nazi leader has developed a strange following among schoolchildren and readers ofMein Kampf in India. Dilip D’Souza on how political leader Bal Thackeray influenced Indians to admire Hitler and despise Gandhi.

My wife teaches French to tenth-grade students at a private school here in Mumbai. During one recent class, she asked these mostly upper-middle-class kids to complete the sentence “J’admire …” with the name of the historical figure they most admired.